I’m more than ready to return to the “good old days” when I thought nothing of meeting friends for lunch at our favorite eatery or playing pickleball at the local courts or running to the market for a few items in the middle of the day. However, I find myself mysteriously apprehensive about the prospect of resuming what we’ve come to call normal life.

It isn’t the “normal life” as described above that gives me pause. It’s what has passed for normal life on the political scene.

“Never let a crisis go to waste,” we’ve been told at various junctures. If ever there was a time to heed this, it is now. My apprehension grows out of a concern that we’ll allow this, the quintessential crisis of our time, to eventually “resolve” without addressing the deep flaws it has made so glaringly apparent. Such things as …

A health insurance system heavily dependent on employers—at a time when large numbers will be unemployed

An economic system in which labor unions have been eviscerated, leaving individual workers relatively powerless and often resulting in stagnating wages and benefits while income inequality, aided by welfare for the wealthy, takes on a life of its own

Growing homelessness, drug addiction, underemployment, and astonishingly low minimum wages at both state and federal levels

A presidential electoral system that too frequently lifts into office candidates who fail to win the popular vote and currently has brought us the most unqualified and inept president in history

Lack of effective campaign spending limits in our post-Citizens United world which often turns legislators into tools of big-money contributors at the expense of the voters who sent them to Washington and perpetuates all of the above

And those don’t even begin to cover the immense challenges of climate change which threatens to make the planet uninhabitable and the need for upgraded, new and improved infrastructure in the areas of mass transit, broadband, highways, and schools. The list goes on.

A year ago, we (I, anyway) couldn’t have imagined a scenario like the one we’re living through. The fact that we have a disorganized, uneducated leader exacerbates the situation, but this would have been difficult in any event. We’ve ignored for years all the early warning signs that we must address the many challenges we face. Now we have a global pandemic that has lit up our flaws like a klieg light. The emperor truly has no clothes and we have truly ignored the rot in Washington that has left many among us behind in so many ways. If this doesn’t get our attention and produce action to address deep and abiding injustice, I don’t know what will.

Every day for the past few days, Andrew Cuomo, governor of the besieged state of New York, has been conducting a master class in the art of leadership in a crisis. The man who most desperately needs such instruction, unfortunately, doesn’t attend. He’s too busy conducting sessions of the “how not to do it” variety in the White House. I imagine most of you have seen at least snippets of the latter, but you may have missed Gov. Cuomo. If so, click here to see a sample.

The difference between the two is striking—in tone, content, and delivery. Cuomo sits at a table, aides seated at a safe distance on either side. Trump stands at a podium, aides crowded shoulder to shoulder behind him. Those visuals alone tell you a lot about the level of respect each gives his assistants in these perilous times.

Cuomo speaks calmly, with assurance, looking at the reporters, gesturing on occasion. He’s informative and articulate. He uses no notes, but prepared highlights of his main points appear on a screen as he speaks. He exudes genuine concern and believes in what he’s saying. He understands the human condition and shares personal stories. Discussing families in distress, he talks about his experience when his daughter was in isolation and says three-word sentences can make a difference: “I love you. I miss you. I need you.”

He inspires confidence, even as he announces a new level of restriction for the residents of his state. Sensitive to words, he calls his plan New York State on PAUSE: Policies that Assure Uniform Safety for Everyone. “Shelter in Place” scares people, he points out; it’s associated in many people’s minds with active shooter situations or nuclear attacks.

He tells people not to blame anyone county officials, mayors or others of that ilk for the heightened restrictions. “I accept full responsibility,” he declares. When the crisis is over, he wants to be able to say he did everything he could to save lives.

In a word, Gov. Cuomo is presidential.

Our president, quite frankly, is not. He doesn’t take responsibility. He doesn’t inspire confidence. He came late to the game and can’t catch up. He sees everything through the prism of his own self-interest. He insults reporters.

My family—siblings, offspring, and nieces and nephews—are scattered about the country. Like all families at times like this, we worry about each other. One of my sons lives in the heart of Manhattan. I’m glad Gov. Cuomo is the guy in charge in that state.

I’ve never been much of a shopper so when Amazon came along with its “free shipping and returns,” I succumbed to their entreaties to pony up for “Prime” which enabled me to stay home and take advantage of this windfall. But first, let me say my aversion to brick and mortar shopping is no simple phenomenon, its major manifestation involving clothing, particularly pants.

Manufacturers of men’s clothing realized early on that waist measurement and leg length may not correlate in the male body, and they instituted a sensible system

of identifying garments with a set of two measurements (W36/ L32, for instance). Thus, the choices are endless.

Manufacturers of women’s clothing, however, settled for a much sloppier system in which you’ll find clothing labelled either petite, miss, or women. Occasionally, they attempt to tell you the leg length (short, medium, tall), but these are approximations at best, and without an accurate size chart, length is a guess. While I’ve always considered myself an ordinary short person, apparently my shortness is extreme since even “short” is often too long. I know … they probably figure any self-respecting short female can shorten her pants herself. But do we want to? Sexism.

By ordering from Amazon, I can order the same pants in different sizes and colors, have one marathon “trying on” session in the comfort of my own home and return whatever I don’t want. For me, this beats the multiple trips between rack and dressing room with the requisite taking off and putting on of clothing.

Another, more recent cause of my aversion to brick and mortar shopping, however, is that I’m among those multitudes who crowd the coasts, and more people keep coming. Hence, sensible weekday shopping hours are, with luck, 10 AM to 2, and then, perhaps, from 7 PM ‘til closing. Otherwise it’s traffic gridlock and I find no joy in sitting through three traffic light cycles or creeping along a freeway optimistically designed for an average speed of 70 MPH.

I’ve advocated repopulating the hollowed-out center of the country where I grew up and where, now, some folks could work remotely or venture into small business start-ups or other endeavors; but these suggestions are often met with scorn. In the contest between tolerating weather that may range from 0 degrees to 100 and traffic that may range from 0 MPH to 100, traffic wins just about every time.

All that having been said, here’s the trouble with Amazon: Cardboard and plastic. You Amazon shoppers know what I mean. A small unbreakable item arrives in a 12 x 18 inch box filled with some air filled plastic and an item the size of a tube of travel toothpaste. I’ve even had an “Amazon” box arrive containing a perfectly fine cardboard box full of the item ordered and which needed nothing but an address label to get here all by itself.

Clearly there’s room for improvement here—and, from what I understand—in the Amazon workplace as well. Dilemmas. Life is full of them these days.

​Rarely does anything astonish me, but a reader recently brought to my attention the poetry of Brian Bilston. I set out to contact him to seek permission to post one of his poems "Refugee" on the Readers Write page. That's when I discovered the poet is a mysterious figure, not named Brian Bilston, whose true identity remains unknown. Hence, getting in touch proved difficult so I print it here as part of my own opinion piece. If he stumbles across it, I hope he'll get in touch.

"Refugee" is meant to be read both from the top line to the bottom and from the bottom line to the top. The message reading up is the perfect antidote to the message reading down. Read it first in the conventional direction.

Refugee​By Brian Bilston

​They have no need of our helpSo do not tell meThese haggard faces could belong to you or IShould life have dealt a different handWe need to see them for who they really areChancers and scroungersLayabouts and loungersWith bombs up their sleevesCut-throats and thievesThey are notWelcome hereWe should make themGo back to where they came fromThey cannotShare our foodShare our homesShare our countriesInstead let us Build a wall to keep them out It is not okay to sayThese are people just like usA place should only belong to those who were born thereDo not be so stupid to think thatThe world can be looked at another way

Shortly after World War II, a German Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemoller, wrote what became an oft-quoted and oft-revised prose poem. It crystallized the role we all play in our own fate and the fate of others. Being very adaptable, it has been through many iterations at the hands of sundry writers. In the original English-language form, the poem referred to the Nazis using a simple pattern: “First they came for …” as in “First they came for the socialists … “

As we know, “they” took their victims away, incarcerated them and murdered millions. We tend to think of the perpetrators of the assault as parts of the official Nazi apparatus, but as Nazism grew, fearful neighbors turned on each other in order to curry favor with officialdom. How about our wildly proliferating mass shooters? Do they, in their derangement, believe they are currying favor with the hater-in-chief?

Will some dystopian future bring us a similar fate? Herewith a warning.

A Warning for the Time of Trump

First they went after the African AmericansAnd I did not speak outBecause I was not African American

Then they went after the Latinos And I did not speak out Because I was not Latino

Then they went after the MuslimsAnd I did not speak outBecause I was not a Muslim

Then they went after the immigrantsAnd I did not speak outBecause I was not an immigrant

Then they went after the poorAnd I did not speak outBecause I was not poor

Then they went after those who were lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queerAnd I did not speak outBecause I was not lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer

Then they went after the JewsAnd I did not speak outBecause I was not a Jew

Then they went after the women of reproductive ageAnd I did not speak outBecause I was not a woman of reproductive age

Thoughts for Our Time

“Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.”~Benjamin Disraeli